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Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Common sense prevails!

Woke up to a cool, windy, overcast day yesterday so we decided that we were better off driving. We're not really beach people to begin with, and the beach on a dreary day just doesn't seem worth it to us.

And the forecast for Magnolia Beach looked terrible for the next week, and not much better all across Texas. But the better weather is definitely closer to the Mexico border, so we started heading that way.

Said goodbye to Lorne and Sue and then over to to Ed and Lessie who full time in a Bluebird Wanderlodge. They had invited us over to see their rig.

The Bluebird Wanderlodge was the first "high end" motorhome. They were produced between 1963 and 2009. I think there were only about 2,000 units made in total. Theirs is a 1990 model.

I took the picture of the outside a few days before when it was sunny!

Interesting stuff. Even a 1990 is still worth somewhere around $50k, but it's the repair and maintenance that will bankrupt you.

Anyhow, time to hit the road...

Still some Hurricane Harvey damage to be cleaned up in Refugio.

Not much to see when you're driving in this part of Texas. I guess that's why they put the 75 mph speed limit!

Yesterday's drive, 109 miles (174 kms).

Yes, we're heading to the Mexico border, but there are still one or two things we want to see along the way. Making use of our Texas State Parks annual pass, we pulled in to Lake Corpus Christi State Park. I had read on their website that they have "water only" campsites for $10 a night. We figured we would make use of one of the four camping discount coupons that came with our annual pass where we get 50% off one night of a two night stay.

Entering the park.

Pulled up to the office, and saw the sign that said "Full hookup sites sold out". Well that's okay, we don't need hookups of any kind. Still, I didn't expect it to be this busy.

Went into the office and asked for a water only site. The friendly lady behind the desk explained that their water only sites are very short, and they've put a maximum 24' limit on them. Sherman is 28'.

Hmph. Well, if that's the way it is, we'll take an electric site. We're here anyway. Too bad it's going to cost us twice as much. She assigned us site #6, and off we went.

We got parked up in site #6.

Not ideal, but not bad.

It was almost happy hour, but we decided we needed to go for a walk first.

Nice park, on a pretty lake!

Rental stand up boards and kayaks that are self serve.

You do the whole thing online, and there is free internet by the bathroom to do so. Very cool!

Popular with the fishermen.

Lots of bird life.

A pair of caracaras.

We walked 5 kms (3 miles). It's actually a fairly big park and we only did about half of it. We'll do the rest today.

We walked through one of the "water only" campgrounds, and it was totally empty. Beautiful views of the lake from almost any site. Much better than where we were. Sure, the sites are very short but Sherman has an 8 ft overhang behind the rear wheels so he could easily back into almost any site and fit with no problem.

We decided to walk back to the office and plead our case.

The lady behind the desk was firm... it was a rule that no rig greater than 24' can occupy those sites. And we understand why it's a rule. If it wasn't, you would have rigs and vehicles blocking parts of the narrow road as people tried to squeeze into sites that are too small for them. But, as park managers ourselves, we sometimes came across situations where our own rules needed to be bent. After all, rules are made to be enforced with some common sense.

We asked if we could talk to the boss, and a fellow from another office came into the room as he had heard part of the story.

Sure enough, common sense prevailed, and he said we could go ahead and bend the rule. The friendly lady refunded our $15, and we went and moved Sherman.

Nice folks running things here at Lake Corpus Christi State Park.

Much better! Nobody around but us!

Woke up to an overcast and cool morning, but the wind has calmed down, and it's not raining. We'll take it. Ruth is making a big pot of chili, and then we'll bundle up and go get some exercise.

Looks like a nice spot to be. Common sense will be prevailing here soon too I think. Did Sue mention to you the aircraft carrier museum in Corpus Christi? I don't know if that interests you. Safe travels.

No she hadn't mentioned the aircraft carrier but we have learned that they are generally pretty pricey to visit. We almost did the one in San Diego but we had a beautiful day and didn't want to waste it spending our time mostly inside of a ship. After saying that, I am thinking that it would be something to do on a miserable day! We will see.

That is a wonderful spot much nicer. We used to camp in Algonquin park and would park our 36 ft motorhome on a site that said maximum 18 feet, no hook ups and we still had plenty of room. Now they no longer allow it. Oh well much too expensive there now anyway at $42.00 a night !

I've noticed you don't park Sherman with the front windows facing the view. Since you don't use hookups, I am wondering why you don't take advantage of the view? When we owned a motorhome, we bought extra hoses just so we could pull in facing the lake, mountains, whatever there was to look at out the front window, even if it meant more challenging hookups.

In this particular situation, it was a one way road and there was no way to make the turn in to the site driving in. Also, as I said above, we had to back in so that our overhang would pass over the end of the site. Otherwise, it would have been a tight fit based on their 24 ft site maximum.

Okay, this is a long story... you better make yourself comfortable! Some of our long time readers might remember that I (Kevin) need to ge...

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